The Motivation to Attend Music Festivals - Notting Hill Carnival - Literature review Example

Event management Tourism: Interim Report – The motivation to attend music festivals – Notting Hill Carnival Introduction Festivals and special events have increased worldwide because they provide significant economic, socio-cultural, and political impacts on their destination. While, a plethora of studies have examined tourists’ motivation and socio-economic impacts, little research has been conducted on the motivation and socio-economic impact of festival attendees with regard to different product offerings. The first objective of this paper, therefore, is to investigate the underlying dimensions of motivation for attending an international festival and whether motivation will vary across six different festival products (Symphony, Rock, World Music, Dance, Ballet, and Theater). The second purpose is to understand how festival attendees perceive the socio-economic impacts of the festival and how these perceived impacts vary across different festival attendee groups. Finally, the study examines the overall satisfaction of festival attendees with respect to different festival products. Literature Review Motivation has been considered as an important subject in Event Management. Motivation was described distinctly by different authors. For example, Furnham (1997, p.245) insists that motivation is dual in nature: one point is “the nature of the driving force (where it comes from; what are its properties)”; another point is „the direction and maintenance of the drive (what effects does it have on individual behavior) ‟. Likewise Mitchell (1982, p.81) identifies motivation as those psychological processes that cause arousal, direction, and persistence of voluntary actions that are goal oriented‟ and Stephen (1986) describes motivation as the willingness to pursue an organizational goal with high level of enthusiasm, simultaneously having the ability to satisfy a few individual needs. In other words, an individual works towards goals because of an eagerness to fulfill their individual needs. Nicholson and Pearce (2001) reiterates that the study of motivation is one of the most complex areas of tourism research, as it continues to offer many challenges derived from the intangible nature of the phenomenon, issues of multiple motivation, and questions of measurement and interpretations. Looking at most of the existing research on visitor motivations shows a general trend. The research follows the consumer motivation research that revolves around two basic issues, that of understanding the interrelationships between motives and certain behavior, and that of developing the list of the consumer motivation which would reflect all kinds of motives influencing behavior as explained by (Foxall, Goldsmith, & Brown, 1998, Dodd et al., 2001). Therefore, when managers have an understanding of the individual needs driving their attendee s‟ behavior, a wider audience would be motivated more and as a result, they can assist in motivating attendees to festivals. Moreover, it is the type of movement that can internally and externally affect the individual’s attitudes to fulfill their different goals (Michaelson, 2005).Hence, people’s feelings and ideas are included within the motivation concept. In addition, the ideas and feelings about a specific object are internal whereas, any action taken to obtain this object would be external (Steers et al., 2004). Usually, there is an aim or activity that has to be achieved through motivation that moves from the intrinsic to extrinsic types. This implies that the compulsory steps to achieve the goal would narrow down and become less related to the main objective. Intrinsic motivation allows the individual to recognize the set goal and go through the required activities to achieve that goal. On the other hand, extrinsic motivation identifies the required steps to achieve the goal before setting it. Hence, if an individual does not have a clear goal, he/she would rather go for the extrinsic motivation Michaelson, 2005). Furthermore, an individual can be either positively or negatively motivated. For instance, a positive motivation would be trying to fulfill a positive goal while the negative motivation would be trying to stay away from a goal that is perceived as harmful. In conclusion, it has been shown that different aspects of motivation are deduced. Hence, the different perspectives include the individual behaviors and needs. Motivation is affected and influenced by various characteristics, such as, the individual, social, cultural and situational factors (Mullins, 1998).As a result, motivational theories were adopted by different people starting with Maslow. Psychologists were the main developers of most theories and concepts that relate motivation in the early centuries like the 20th century. This is mainly due to the fact that psychologists have always wanted to explain why people do the things they do as explained by (Wagner, 1999). The most notable and common theories among these are the unconscious theory by Sigmund Freud and the popular hierarchy of needs theory by Abraham Maslow. 1. Festival Motivations Thrane (2002) illustrates that two quite different lines of festival research have received most of the attention from scholars. These are the economic impact of festivals and special events and the reasons or motives people have for visiting these festivals and events. Other researches which were done earlier research on festival consumers by (Boo, et al., 2007; Spotts & Mahoney, 1991) showed that visitors‟ motivations for attending a festival are statistically related to the level of their festival expenditures. Another research by (Crompton & McKay, 1997; Lee, Lee, & Wicks, 2004) led to the recognition that festivals and events are one of the fastest growing leisure businesses, this also has subsequently prompted a number of researchers to recognize that identifying visitors‟ motives for attending festivals and events is a prerequisite for effectively planning and marketing event programs to target markets. This has given rise to increased research devoted to visitor motivations has emerged in the past 30 years. Examples of such researchers are Bansal and Eiselt, 2004; Crompton, 1979; Dann, 1977; Fodness, 1994; Iso-Ahola, 1982; McCabe, 2000; Park, Reisinger, and Park, 2009. To explain tourists’ motivation, three alternative frameworks have been commonly used to study and understand individual motives (Crompton & McKay, 1997). The three alternate frameworks are, Iso-Ahola’s escaping-seeking dichotomy (1982; Snepenger et al 2006)), the Travel Career Ladder (Pearce 2005; Pearce & Lee 2005), which is based upon Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and the conceptualization of psychological maturation towards a self-actualization goal (Ryan, 1998), and the notion of pull-push factors (Crompton, 1979; Dann, 1977, 1981; Uysal, Li & Sirakaya-Turk, 2008). All three of these frameworks are imbedded in Maslow’s motivation theory and are not necessarily mutually exclusive. According to Dann (2010), only the formulation of push-pull tourist motivation seems to have survived the full rigor of empirical verification. 2. Socio-Economic Impacts of Festivals and Events Festivals and events have both advantages and disadvantages for the host destination and the community. Therefore, many previous studies have focused on the impacts of festivals and special events (Uysal & Gitelson, 1994). Mathieson & Wall (1982) found that perceived impacts of tourism can be divided into three traditional categories of economic, physical, and social but they mentioned that these were frequently overlapped and have both positive and negative sides. Smith (2005) mentioned that festivals and events generate revenues for the cities. Moreover, they create infrastructure improvement such as new facilities and venues. For instance, arts festivals in Australia and New Zealand have become multimillion-dollar business (Arcodia & Whitford, 2006). Similarly, the Woodford Folk Festivals on the Sunshine Coast of Queens land injected $3million into local economy (Kither, 1998). Chwe (1998) investigated that festivals and special events provide incentives for the local community thus festivals and special events are likely to serve to build social cohesion and trust. Yolal, Cetinel & Uysal (2009) also confirmed that building social cohesion in the community is one of the great advantages of festivals and events and mentioned that festivals and events also help to build an image in the minds of tourists. Even though economic impact studies have tended to emphasize the benefits that accrue to destinations, festivals and events also create negative social, cultural, and environmental impacts through crowding, crime, community displacement, and commodification of culture (Presbury & Edwards, 2005). Barker, Page, & Meyer (2002) examined t impact of special the impact of special events on destination crime rates and concluded that potential impact of crime at special events is unquestionably based on changes in the status of population and criminal opportunities that a seasonal increase in tourism activity presents. Jurowski, Uysal & Williams (1997) investigated the community’s attitude toward tourism. Their findings showed that residents perceived economic impacts significantly positive but the environmental impacts as a negative social cost. These kinds of negative impacts create tourist and community dissatisfaction. Theories and Models Related to Attendees Motivations People’s needs and wants are unlimited. Therefore, people carry out different choices of needs depending on their priorities. There are external and internal drivers of festivals. According to Bowdin et al., (2006) external drivers are family and household influences, reference groups and opinion formers. Also Neal et al., (2002) suggest another external influence is culture. On the other hand, Iso-Ahola (1980) suggests that internal influences affect consumer decision making about festivals. These influences include perception, „learning and memory, motives, personality traits and consumer attitudes‟ (Bowdin et al., 2006 p.195). Some internal drivers of motivation include: escape from daily life routine, leaving a status behind as Botha, Crompton and Kim (1999) claimed. In addition, there is a set of general motives for attending festivals, as presented by Axelsem and Arcodia (2004); represented as external communication, family togetherness. Also Kim et al., (2006) found motivations related to family togetherness and socialization to be most influential in festival attendance. Other motives are run away from daily life, excitement or thrills. Iso-Ahola (1980) defined motivation as the “internal factor that arouses, directs, and integrates a person’s behavior”. As of date, there is no universally agreed upon conceptualization of tourist motivation theory as observed by (Fodness, 1994). The discussions in the tourism motivational research usually revolve around two interrelated models, that of the escape-seeking dichotomy and that of seeking intrinsic personal and interpersonal rewards. Iso-Ahola‟s (1982) theory suggests that “seeking” and “escaping” are the basic motivational dimensions of attendees‟ behavior. He defines seeking as the desire to obtain psychological (intrinsic) rewards through event in a contrasting environment; he also defines escaping as the desire to leave the everyday environment behind oneself. Furthermore, Dann (1977, 1981) and Crompton (1979) proposed the push and pull theory, which is in the similar generic category to the dimensions of the escape-seeking dichotomy. There is a general consensus that pull factors are the external forces representing the destination/product features, for example, the attractions, recreation facilities, services that attract the person to a product. Push factors are the internal forces related to the needs and wants that motivate a person to hoose a product or visit a destination, for example the desire for rest or adventure. Crompton (1979) further identified nine motives based on the “push and pull” model, which include seven push factors, which are, escape from a perceived mundane environment, exploration and evaluation of self, relaxation, prestige, regression, enhancement of kinship relationships, and facilitation of social interaction) and two pull factors which are novelty and education, for pleasure vacation. Many other researchers (Crompton, 1979; Lee, O‟ Leary, Lee and Morrison, 2002; Oom do Valle, Correia, and Rebelo, 2007; Sirakaya and Woodside, 2005; Yoon and Uysal, 2005) have also noted that destination choice is influenced by different push and pull motives. While some researchers seek to explore the concepts of extrinsic and intrinsic motives involving the push and pull factors. The extrinsic sources of motivation include the external factors that represent the destination/product features that attract the person to a destination. Intrinsic has been defined to include body/physical, mind/neutral, for example cognitive, affective, conative) or transpersonal/spiritual factors that motivate the person to choose a destination as shown by (Park et al., 2009; Reisinger, 2009). Beyond the factor of motivation of attendees the relevance of the marketing strategies of the organizers also needs to be addressed. Motivation to attend festivals is not the only force that influences peoples‟ attitudes to attend festivals although it is the main aspect affecting their minds and behavior (Getz, 1991).Event organizers use the help of various marketing mix to attract visitors. Festival organizer must understand the reason why people attend and therefore by highlighting such key components of the festival, a marketing campaign can be carried out to motivate more people to visit the place. Marketing is very essential in modern days‟ time due to the competitive world where you find so many festivals taking place simultaneously at a given time within the close proximity of the area. Consequently, proper marketing techniques help in distinguishing a festival from the others. A clear marketing communication campaign helps the community festival visitor to plan what he/she wants to attend and gives him/her a proper guideline to what to expect from the event. References Axelsen, M. and Arcodia, C. (2004). “Motivations for Attending the Asia-Pacific Triennial Art Exhibition‟. In Paper presented at the 14th International Research Conference of the Council for Australian University Tourism and Hospitality Education, 10-13 February, Brisbane. Botha, C., J.L. Crompton and, S. Kim (1999) Developing a Revised Competitive Position for Sun/Lost City, South Africa. Journal of Travel Research 37: 341-352. Bellapais Abbey Northern Cyprus‟.bestheadline. 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